Diversity & Inclusion

Mayor visits Digital Harbor Foundation for Family Make Night

It was Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's first visit to the converted rec center in Federal Hill since it re-opened as the Digital Harbor Tech Center in January 2013.

Students built LED ornaments with parents and relatives during December's Family Make Night at the Digital Harbor Tech Center. (Photo courtesy of the Digital Harbor Foundation)

Parents, relatives and students between the ages of 3 and 17 — 84 people in all — were at the Digital Harbor Tech Center for the second Family Make Night on Monday building circuits and designing LED ornaments to hang on their Christmas trees.
Organized by the nonprofit Digital Harbor Foundation (DHF), the Family Make Nights provide an opportunity for students to show parents what they do in after-school programs at the Federal Hill-based tech center.
Two other people of note stopped by. One was Warnock Family Foundation executive director Olga Maltseva, who was voted the new chairperson of DHF’s eeight-person board.
The other was Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. It was the mayor’s first visit to the converted rec center in Federal Hill since it re-opened as the Digital Harbor Tech Center, under the stewardship of DHF, in January 2013.
“She checked out the 3D printing stuff. It was mostly a tour,” said Andrew Coy, executive director of the Digital Harbor Foundation. “It was just a really important first step.”

SRBatDHF

From left: DHF board chair Olga Maltseva, Mayor Rawlings-Blake and DHF director of technology Shawn Grimes.


For the tech community in Baltimore, it was another sign that city government is beginning to take notice of its efforts, both in trying to launch startup businesses in the city and increasing city school students’ access to new digital tools such as 3D printers and Arduino circuits.
“Generally [she] has been paying a lot more attention, I’ve noticed, to the technology community here in Baltimore,” Coy said. “I don’t presume to know what influences have helped along there, but I’ve been pretty impressed lately.”
Some of the irony, however, shouldn’t be lost, as Mayor Rawlings-Blake was shown around a building that, at one time, had a precarious future. The Digital Harbor Tech Center was once the South Baltimore rec center, which was saved from closure by the city when Digital Harbor High School and the Digital Harbor Foundation stepped in, eventually converting the center into a place that now runs after-school programming courses and a summer camp focused on digital fabrication and video game development.
And, additionally, Family Make Night, a new monthly two- to three-hour event. The first one, held in November, had students and parents make 3D prints of cookie cutters. In January, families will be using the tech center’s vinyl cutter to make stickers they can affix to the back windshields of cars or the exteriors of their laptops.
“It’s proved to be a valuable experience, youth seeing adults learning and just interacting in that way,” said Coy.

Companies: Warnock Family Foundation / Digital Harbor High School / Digital Harbor Foundation

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

3 ways to support our work:
  • Contribute to the Journalism Fund. Charitable giving ensures our information remains free and accessible for residents to discover workforce programs and entrepreneurship pathways. This includes philanthropic grants and individual tax-deductible donations from readers like you.
  • Use our Preferred Partners. Our directory of vetted providers offers high-quality recommendations for services our readers need, and each referral supports our journalism.
  • Use our services. If you need entrepreneurs and tech leaders to buy your services, are seeking technologists to hire or want more professionals to know about your ecosystem, Technical.ly has the biggest and most engaged audience in the mid-Atlantic. We help companies tell their stories and answer big questions to meet and serve our community.
The journalism fund Preferred partners Our services
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

Interactive timeline: top moments from Baltimore’s challenging yet inspiring year in tech

Baltimore is setting a national standard for diversifying its economy

19 tech and entrepreneurship events to check out before the holidays

Tech lab space opening in new 4MLK building, thanks to $2M in public funds

Technically Media